War Never Changes
by Cale017
Summary: Professor Ozpin, alone in his office, ponders whether the path they take is one that leads to a solution, or simply the next cycle of needless bloodshed.


War.

War never changes.

The small ticking of pins in latches preceded the booming clunks of gears shifting, every sixty smaller ticks giving one larger clunk. It was a brutal reminder of time; both its never ending march forwards and its limited availability. Perhaps the cruelest irony of life: that we would be given access to a resource so vital, of so much potential, but have to live every moment with the knowledge that we have one less to live.

And now each of those moments were ticking away towards the one in which his students… the students of four kingdoms perhaps… when everyone would be facing war. But not against the Grimm, for that was a war humanity had long been fighting. A war of ignorance, and of hatred, and of the most fearsome force that any human could ever hope to never face: another human being. That in a world in which every day that mankind marched onwards came at the sacrifice of who knew how many brave Huntsman and Huntresses protecting the masses within the Kingdom walls there would be those who sought to tip that delicate balance for their own means was simply horrifying.

Ozpin had fought many, many, many adversaries over the years. And while fighting Grimm could become a learned trait, a pattern to follow, much like the tracks which lead them to their quarries and earned them the generations old names of Hunters, fighting humans was never as simple. Grimm were mindless, instinctive, and while they were fierce individually could only truly become difficult to deal with en masse. But a human… a single human, a single faunus, but one member of mankind had the potential to bring about ruin and chaos.

He sighed, shaking his head, and turned away from his desk while picking up his mug, striding over to the large window overlooking the main grounds of his Academy. Beacon, a light shining in the darkness. This was to be a place of learning, of growth. But now, more than ever, as he gazed down at the students and teachers under his care moving about from classes, lectures, and training sessions, leaving for or arriving home from missions, Ozpin found himself wondering how many of them would be willing to throw their lives into the storm brewing on the horizon. His Academy was becoming a training grounds for a war that he had always hoped would never be waged, and yet was knocking on his doorstep. Every clunk in his office was one closer to when the noise within his office would be replaced with the sounds outside of it. Eventually the shifting of gears would be replaced with the heat of flame, and the metallic clinging of blade against blade. He breathed in the smell of his tea, overlooking the courtyard, wondering how much longer he had before the smell of gunpowder was to fill his nostrils.

For a moment, Ozpin found himself wondering how many he would have to see buried once again.

The knocking at his door came as no surprise, and he could tell from the way that it was opened after he called out a response that it was Glynda Goodwitch. He didn't move, letting her come over to him as she spoke, "Ozpin, are you absolutely certain that there is nothing we can do to get Ironwood's ships anchored elsewh…. Ozpin?" she stopped short as she came around his desk, the wizened professor now within view. Tentatively the teacher stepped forwards, raising a hand to brush her fingers down his shoulder in an attempt to catch his attention. "Ozpin you can't do this to yourself."

Brown eyes remained transfixed on the students below for a moment before shutting, Ozpin letting out a slow breath before opening them and gazing back down. "My dear Goodwitch," he responded, shaking his head and taking a small sip of his tea, long cold. "It is no longer about what I do to myself. I have already done so much. It is about what I am doing to them."

Glynda stopped, clasping her hands near her chest for a moment as she joined Ozpin by the window looking down at the hustle and bustle below. "This was always a possibility," the blonde points out, looking over at Ozpin once more.

His gray hair shuffles a bit as he nods, hand tightening on his cane. "Yes," he responds simply, taking another sip. "But that doesn't mean it ever had to be a reality." His eyes caught a familiar flash of red far below, a cape fluttering as a young student zoomed about in excitement. "Not for them, and yet they were aware of it before we ever were. Perhaps I am losing my touch? Too much theory, and not enough practice."

Glynda sighed, knowing better than to try and argue with Ozpin after all these years. He always seemed to know what to say, and when to say it. She'd seen him talk his way out of more situations than he had ever had to fight his way from… and that was saying something. "It is not our duty to lead charges anymore, Ozpin," she points out, stepping closer to the glass and watching as her own students made their way about. "It's theirs. That's why this Academy exists, or have you forgotten that? We are here to get them ready for what comes."

"But that doesn't mean we've prepared them for what has arrived," Ozpin retorted, eliciting a silent display of exasperation from Glynda, her shoulder drooping slightly. "Tell me Glynda, when you look down what do you see?"

Goodwitch stopped, taking a long moment to try and figure out what to answer. What the right answer was. "… future Huntsmen and Huntswomen," she finally replied.

Another clunk.

"Yes, /future/ Huntsmen and Huntswomen," Ozpin replied coolly, sipping his tea. "Perhaps in a few more years they might have been more fully prepared."

Another reminder of time running forwards, and running out.

"And what of the students who will have arrived in a few years' time?" Glynda asks, turning to face Ozpin directly. "Ozpin, you know I don't want to see them fight any more than you do, but it can't be helped. They chose their path, and it was one that leads them to battles. Most of them will continue to fight long after you and I are gone. All we can do is make sure they learn what we can teach them so that as many make it out as possible."

After that it was Ozpin's turn to be silent for a time, his pensiveness punctuated by the pounding of mechanisms, springs and gears and levers, pulling and tugging at one another all around them. "So then, my dear Glynda," Ozpin finally speaks, and the blonde has to resist a small start from his voice. "How much can we teach them? And how many less will make it out of this than had they just been able to fight the Grimm like their forebears?"

Glynda sighed, shaking her head, and moved over in front of Ozpin to place her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to move his brown eyes to face her blue ones. "We teach them what it is to be Hunters," she says, looking into his eyes. "And we pray that we can teach them another day when all of this is over." Goodwitch continued staring into Ozpin's eyes for a few more seconds before breaking away, removing the cup from his hand with a small nod. "… I'll get you some fresh tea. Sugar?"

"Yes please," Ozpin nods, clasping his hands on the cane shifted in front of him. He listens as the small clacks of Glynda's heels against the floor fade into the distance, his door opening and shutting, and soon he is surrounded once more by the silence shot through with sounds of reminder. Reminders that every tick he heard was another step taken by Roman Torchwick, by the White Fang, by anyone who looked to do the Kingdoms harm. A thief allied with extremists. The best of intentions corrupted and twisted, and fueled by flames that he could feel the heat of, but not find the source for… an analogy that he was having a difficult time not taking literally for the strangest reason.

Clunk.

A small, sad smile graced his lips as he looked down while the courtyards emptied into classes and dorms. Beacon Academy, the first and foremost training ground for those who would seek to protect the world… from whatever threatened it.

War never changes.

But that didn't mean they didn't have to.


End file.
